This car was presented to the McLaren board as ‘Project 3’ in 1999. McLaren didn’t think it fitted with its image at the time it was developing the SLR supercar for Mercedes. Murray’s CV shows that he designed three V8 and V12-engined McLaren road cars to follow the no-expense-spared F1 but none of them reached production. He was unhappy with the concept of the bulky SLR which was based on a Mercedes design and left McLaren after the production version was completed.

It is quite a stretch from the SLR and F1 – either the road car or the race car – to the T.25 which is smaller, lighter, more spacious and more economical than a Smart ForTwo. It is designed for 100,000-a-year production and a UK price of £5,500, which would make it the cheapest new car on the market.

Murray has no intention of becoming a volume car manufacturer. His idea is to licence car designs, and the processes to make them, to other companies, either existing car makers or other industrial groups.

For this reason – negotiations are already taking place – he does not feel able to show us the car, prototypes of which will start testing soon. When the final version will be revealed, and how far Murray’s involvement will be acknowledged, will depend on manufacturer that has bought the design. The T.25 will not be on sale much before 2012.

We know that T.25 is shorter and narrower than the Smart, that it uses a purpose-built petrol engine – thought to be a twin-cylinder unit of about 600 cc – driving the rear wheels, and rethinks conventional seating positions, luggage accommodation and even entry and exit. The key feature is its low weight. Murray originally talked of 500 kg but now says it will be ‘under 600 kg’.

While the design is novel, Murray emphasizes that the materials used and the manufacturing process are even more revolutionary: ‘We needed to have a completely new way of making cars. This is the biggest rethink since spot-welded steel cars became the norm 70 years ago’.

Murray believes that the next big thing after the current preoccupation with carbon dioxide coming out of the tailpipe will be lifecycle emissions – the energy and materials used in making as well as running the car: its total carbon footprint.

The body-in-white (industry jargon for the car’s structure before the installation of mechanical components and trim) will be 80 per cent cheaper to make than a conventional car’s. It does, Murray says, use some ‘extraordinary materials’, each selected for a particular purpose.

The body and chassis are separate. The chassis is part steel and part composite material. At least some parts of the structure use recycled cardboard.

Assembly of the car will require only low automation. The process is easy, like building a truck, with ready-painted body panels the last items to be installed.

It is applicable to larger and different types of cars. T.26 and T.27 are already on Murray’s drawing board (he leaves CAD-CAM to his associates). He would like to do a cheap, lightweight two-seater, a 21st century Austin Healey Sprite or MG Midget. It is no coincidence that his own regular transport for the past few years has been Smart Roadster – though he is puzzled why that didn’t sell well and was taken off the market.

Then there is the Murray supercar project. He sees that as ‘something we can put our own stamp on’, a statement that will create good PR for his business. What will it be like? Murray: ‘Well, forget 2 tons 800 bhp and a million Euros. It will be small, ultra-light and beautifully made – like a work of art or a piece of jewellery. We will make only a very small number, perhaps 100.’

The New Age supercar will have a version of the T.25’s engine, turbocharged but probably no more than 1 litre displacement. He is not saying how the car will be configured but I have the impression that it could be a single-seat coupe, like a miniature fighter jet. Selling for about £120,000, it will be, as he says, ‘a car for collectors’.

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